Here Right Now

Will McInnes

5.0 (11)
SOCIETY & CULTURE

Here Right Now explores the future that’s already here. Every week a special guest brings a new perspective on how a facet of everyday life is changing right now. Through their expert eyes we go deep into emerging new trends around the world. hererightnow.substack.com

20/01/2021

#11: Rewilding and the beaver with Derek Gow

Everyone needs to know about rewilding, in my opinion. Rewilding is an evocative concept. Notions of the good old days! A lush and lively community of species going about their business undeterred, swapping planes in the sky for a cornucopia of birds and bees, and on the ground, boar, bears, bison, wolves and maybe beaver too. Not just a return, but perhaps a new accommodation - humans and the rest of the ecosystem in balance. Rewilding. It sounds cool. Pandemic and lockdowns created space and caught imaginations. In the absence of other distractions, we town and city-dwellers started noticing the birds in our gardens, while in Barcelona the city’s boar population is out of control and in Wales mountain goats invaded a town. And lots of us have heard about the rare species that have returned to Chernobyl of all places, and how the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park unlocked an amazing cascade of ecosystem improvements. ‘Nature is healing’ was the optimistic meme. Derek Gow has spent a lifetime caring for, cultivating and reintroducing species in the UK. A farmer and a conservationist, and now author of the funny, irreverent and moving book ‘Bringing Back the Beaver: The Story of One Man's Quest to Rewild Britain's Waterways’, he tells it how he sees it. Gow knows what rewilding takes. He’s spent decades doing it. Fighting red tape and the affluent countryside lobbies. Breeding and introducing delicate creatures through trial and error. As an authority and a practitioner, Derek can share an accurate and grounded point of view about how real rewilding is or isn’t, how pressing the need is and what the major barriers are to making better, faster progress, today. In this conversation you’ll learn about keystone species, about why the beaver is so surprisingly impactful on its ecosystem, you’ll hear about the white-tailed eagles ‘the size of a flying barn door’ being reintroduced across the UK, you’ll get a clear sense of how you can support rewilding efforts and loads more. And you’ll enjoy Derek’s fluent, fiery, no-nonsense account. Links * Derek Gow - Twitter * Bringing Back the Beaver: The Story of One Man's Quest to Rewild Britain's Waterways by Derek Gow (book on Amazon) * Beavers on the River Tamar, Devon (opens PDF) * White-tailed Eagle reintroduction - Roy Dennis Foundation * Knepp - ground-breaking rewilding project in Sussex, UK * Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree (book on Waterstones) * Further listening #8: Understanding our plants and fungi with Dr Ilia Leitch Credits * Music by Lee Rosevere Automated transcript Will McInnes 0:00 So did you did you get an eagle today? Derek Gow 0:04 I've not been anywhere near the farm today I've been up looking at another project and Bridgewater nowhere near that goodness knows hopefully but I won't see till tomorrow Will McInnes 0:15 right Where's Bridgewater in the world? Derek Gow 0:18 Somerset so when I'm looking at we rewire a rewilding project on a farm there lots of people really interested in smaller areas of land taking smaller areas of land 120 acres or something like that and looking at how you restore it for nature so was up seeing charming couple who run our you know, organic fruit and vege operation there and already have an area which is incredibly rich and wildlife Big Finish flocks, like so which I haven't seen for years, I say the game leading areas, and then it's just down to the, the crops and the seeds and the untidiness of it all. And because you've got that you've got nature, it's not very complicated. Will McInnes 1:04 I love it. I love it. That's so so fantastic. I'd love to just start by introducing you and saying, you know, welcome, Unknown Speaker 1:14 you're, Will McInnes 1:15 I've been really inspired following you have read your book recently. And on the book sleeve, it describes you as a farmer and a conservationist is that is that the feel like the right kind

44 min
10/12/2020

#10: Creating new operating models for cities with Jenni Lloyd

Cities are ‘serendipity engines’ and ‘social super colliders’ as well as vital places that we live, according to our expert guest Jenni Lloyd - but are the operating models used to deliver our city services and governance fit for a world of continued social change and austerity in public spending? Instead, how can we build better communities and places? "Austerity has dictated that there's scarcity, but actually there's almost an infinite abundance within communities, and the local authorities that have realized that have taken a very different approach" In her work recently at the innovation foundation NESTA, thinker, advisor and strategist Jenni and her team published the six part New Operating Models for Local Government. Behind the scenes they spoke with frontline innovators finding new interesting ways to deliver public services in cities, many in communities the North of England, who have been collaborating to develop new responses based on fundamental questions like “What is the contract between the city and the citizen?” and “What is a good place, what is a good life?”, linking together ‘anchor institutions’ like local hospitals, police and other social services in helpful new ways. By the end of this conversation you’ll be looking at your own cities as serendipity engines, as networks, as a holistic system and above all as places changing, right now. Links * Jenni Lloyd - Twitter * New Operating Models for Local Government - NESTA * ShareTown - NESTA interactive visual map with real examples of city innovation * Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) - short video Credits * Music by Lee Rosevere Automated transcript So Jenni, you have a great history. And it would be brilliant, if you could just share, not the hour, the hour long version, but the which you warned it could take which, but if you could give us a brief potted history of Jenni Lloyd maybe starting from the beginning, Jenni Lloyd 2:26 at the very beginning, 1968, I did a fine art degree. And I went to art college, and primarily to leave home and spent three years making things and with varying degrees of success. And then I left art college with a degree in fine art, which isn't a particularly saleable commodity. And I found my way to Brighton kind of randomly, because I wanted to not go home to where my parents live, because it's very boring. And I didn't want to stay where it was, because it's boring. So I came to Brighton, and I'm still in Brighton. So Brighton is important to me. But um, I think my first job out of college was cleaning toilets on the pier. And, and so I had no idea what I wanted to do, I had no idea what was available to me. And looking back at it. And I had had some stupid ideas like this whole thing about truth to materials and how I wouldn't use computers. And bearing in mind, obviously, that this is almost kind of before the internet. But, um, that kind of fell by the wayside when I got involved in. Again, just kind of serendipitously, like, randomly, I started using computers, because I was working for the local newspaper to process images. And I realised that a lot of the kind of artwork that I was still making, which is all kind of collage II, based that I could actually do in Photoshop. And, and that led me into years worth of kind of digital design and production. And, and I think I've always thought that my works followed the, the, what's the word, evolution of the web? So initially, just about interfaces. So how do people use things? And how can I make them do the thing that we want them to do online? And then kind of it got more social? And that that was really interesting, because then we started thinking about well, how to how do these things that we're using digitally, and map into what we do collectively anyway, so how to communities work, and how can we provide online spaces where people can behave as communities, and what does that mean for businesses? So you were there for that? And s

55 min
27/11/2020

#9: Fighting Covid-19, first virus then misinformation with Dr Dominic Pimenta

Fighting Covid-19 on the frontlines to save critically ill patients - what must that be like? As an NHS doctor in the UK seconded to emergency intensive care wards, Dr Dominic Pimenta was right there as the first tidal wave broke over London, UK. And with that began a mission, first by founding a charity to equip his fellow healthcare professionals with the support and resources they needed. And now by pursuing the misinformation swirling around the topic, misinformation potentially as deadly as the virus itself with the ability to cause of many hundreds of thousands more deaths. In this fascinating conversation, we hear Dr Dom’s first-hand perspective on the rapidly evolving reality of public health through this pandemic. From the visceral, practical reality of ‘charging through corridors’ setting up new intensive care wards and the emotions from discharging the first recovered patients, into the curiosity of the human condition - why do not just laypeople but also medics, scientists and even epidemiologists find themselves falling for the allure of misinformation. Links * Dr Dominic Pimenta - Twitter * Healthcare Workers Foundation - charity. * Modern Society Initiative - thinktank. * Duty of Care - Dom’s latest book, ‘a tense and gripping account of the unfolding pandemic from a doctor who was there’. With all royalties going to the HWF charity. Credits * Big thank you to Jonny Sawyer for introducing Dom * Music by Lee Rosevere Automated transcript Will McInnes 0:00 I am very excited to be here today with Dr. Dom or Dominic Pimenta, who is a doctor but also wears quite a few different hats. so dumb. You're a doctor in your day job. You're the chair of the healthcare workers foundation. Yeah. A director of the modern society initiative. and author of duty of care. Dr Dominic Pimenta 0:23 That's right. Yeah, that's all. Good. I suppose they can. They can. Yeah. Will McInnes 0:30 And other responsibilities? Our Yeah. Let's just park the family. And other I guess if we start at the beginning, like with all good stories, how did you end up becoming a doctor? Like, what's your path? Dr Dominic Pimenta 0:45 Well, I like to tell you that there's some sort of fictional childhood event where somebody was sick. And then the doctor came out nicely, it's really boring. I can't honestly remember why I wanted to be a doctor, I can't remember ever not wanting to be a doctor. So it's like that. I don't have access to have the best. It's a weird thing for doctors that I don't have the best memory. So events that are five to 10 years old, I really sometimes really struggle. So I do wonder if there was something I remember looking out a window once and thinking, Oh, when I die, I don't have any money. This was this because what my family or christian right, so we talked about death and heaven all the time. So I had this idea that when I die, I can't take any money with me. So what's the point in money, which actually is a very bad attitude, I've only just realised that I have. And I need to talk out now because I've got kids. But at the time, I was like, oh, okay, so what will be useful? And then I had this idea vaguely that, you know, after we all die, maybe the people I looked after, or whatever, maybe that's why I don't know, it's very vague. But the really the honest answer is I don't remember. And I was always on this pathway, since I don't know, like five or six. And anybody would say, What do you want? Do you want to be a doctor, and I just, you know, pick my GCSEs A Levels and, and very foolishly applied to for medical schools assumed again, all of them didn't get into it. Now, I've got to tell you, I've got into one of them. And I just assumed I was gonna go to medical school. So I applied for medical school, went to the interview, didn't really prepare at all, and spent the night before the interview just going out with the other interviewees there because you know, this is gonna, I'm going to walk this

56 min
11/11/2020

#8: Understanding our plants and fungi with Dr Ilia Leitch

How much of the world’s plants and fungi do we understand? Scratch that - how much of the world’s plants and fungi have we even discovered? And with that understanding, what is changing right now? In this episode our special guest Dr Ilia Leitch of the world-renowned Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew helps us to explore and begin to understand the fascinating scientific frontiers and discovery underway in the natural world. Kew - working with 210 contributors in 97 institutions across 42 countries - recently released its ‘State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2020’ report, and my conversation with Dr Leitch calls on some of the broad and fascinating findings in this globally important piece of work. Listening to Dr Ilia you will find that we are living in a paradox. While new discoveries are happening every day, with 1,942 species of plants and 1,886 species of fungi scientifically named for the first time in 2019, new insights and everyday applications being uncovered, and only a tiny fraction of the world’s fungi even identified, we are also facing awful, irrecoverable loss, with two in five of plant species threatened with extinction, a world where by the time a new species has been described and named it is often already facing extinction. Despite that, Dr Leitch is optimistic and you will hear a hope grounded in pragmatism and science in her perspectives as we bounce from discovery and taxonomy to genomics (some really interesting parallels with software here for me), get a sense of the amazing ‘hidden kingdom of fungi’ and gain a better appreciation for the opportunities and challenges of international collaboration in science. We can't save things if we don't know what's there. So we have to know what's there. And that's why what we do is important. There’s also a nice link between ‘citizen science’ and some of the discussion with Eliot Higgins on crowdsourcing intelligence in Episode 4. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did and get a better sense of our scientific understanding of plants, fungi and how they are affected by and adapting to this changing world. It really, really matters. Links * Dr Ilia J Leitch, Assistant Head of Comparative Plant and Fungal Biology Department and Senior Research Leader * State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2020 Credits & Thanks * Thank you Louise Brown for the introduction 🌟 * Thank you Anna Carlson for questions * Lee Rosevere for music Automated transcript Will McInnes 0:46 So I'm really privileged to have you here with us today. Dr. Elliot Leach. And you are assistant head of comparative plant and fungal biology and a senior research leader at Royal Botanic Gardens. Kew. Is that correct? Ilia Leitch 1:29 It is quite a mouthful. No, it is correct. It is quite a mouthful. I just think of myself as a very fortunate scientist to be working at Kew. So that's what you know, I have access to the wonderful collections at Kew that enable me to do really exciting well work that I think is exciting. And hopefully important. In the long run, Will McInnes 1:53 when I was a little boy growing up in London, we went on a couple of school trips to to Kew, some people may not have been that lucky. So for the listener that hasn't come across. Kew Could you just tell us a little bit about either the history the purpose, like where, what what the project and the organisation and institution does today. Ilia Leitch 2:16 Um, well, it's a has a very long history goes back 200 and more than 260 years. So as founded in 1759, if I'm correct, and really is a started off as, as a royal garden with the best sort of director of being interested in plants and plant diversity, and being able to name and collect things and by understand how they're used. And over the years, I guess Kew has had a long history of continue to collect lots of samples, and a great expertise in being able to correctly name them. So we have accused of amazing collections in the world

51 min
28/10/2020

#7: Expanding our empathy with Abadesi Osunsade

Today our special guest, my colleague and Forbes ‘25 Black Business Leaders To Follow’ Abadesi Osunsade, directs our attention towards an amazingly powerful, personal and precious capacity - our empathy. ‘What are the limits of empathy and compassion, and can we overcome them?’ Aba is VP of Global Community & Belonging at Brandwatch, host of the highly brilliant Techish podcast and CEO of Hustle Crew. Sourced from her hard work and bitter lived experiences having to fight for fairness and equity in the tech community, Aba’s framing question for our discussion gets to the very heart of a whole world of pain we’re experiencing today. It also opens the door to considering perhaps our largest scale opportunity as a species: greater empathy. In 2020, I can’t think of a more timely and important topic. When you look at the headlines, when you doom-scroll your social media, perhaps when you walk around your neighborhood or city center, what could the world look like if expanded our individual and collective empathy? Would we need to fight so hard for Black Lives Matter and #metoo? Would the onus be so squarely on those oppressed? Would there be a need for drug policy reform or gender pay gap measures? Would we be treating the planet and its living creatures in the way that we do? And in the workplace too how can we find the capacity and tools to better empathize? Amongst pandemic, with frontline working in PPE and office jobs now Zoom-meetings-only, with trying to be a good citizen, family member, partner, worker, and stay healthy while the economy judders and everything is disrupted. With a global recalibration happening, a climate crisis burning? Tune in - I promise you that the breadth of Aba’s knowledge and reading, the clarity of her point of view and the energy of her delivery will command your attention. Links * Abadesi on Twitter * Hustle Crew - a career advancement community for the underrepresented in tech * Techish podcast with Michael Berhane Credits * Lee Rosevere for music Automated transcriptWill McInnes 00:01Aba Hello. Abadesi Osunsade 00:03Hey, how's it going? Will McInnes 00:05Good. How are you? Abadesi Osunsade 00:06Yeah, I'm really good. Thanks. Looking forward to our convo. Will McInnes 00:10Absolutely. So we've recently started working together. Abadesi Osunsade 00:14Yeah, colleagues Will McInnes 00:16colleagues. So good to say Good to have you on board and to be working together. I'm love your energy and everything you're about. Abadesi Osunsade 00:23Thank you. Yeah, it's also think I'm in like week, nine now or 10. It's going going very quickly. But it's awesome. Will McInnes 00:30And for those that don't yet follow you on Twitter, you're kind of chronicling the journey.Abadesi Osunsade 00:37Even filming offendWill McInnes 00:39me see, me too. So on Twitter, you are, I haven't got your Twitter handle here.Abadesi Osunsade 00:48@abadesi. My first name lastWill McInnes 00:51name. That's like getting the domain name. That's like, you've gotAbadesi Osunsade 00:56I do also have Abadesi.com. So yeah, IWill McInnes 00:59yeah. So @ ABADESI, and I, before you joined brandwatch. But when we were talking about it, I started listening to your amazing Techish podcast. And was just inspired by how you and your co host, Michael, just the energy I was I was doing. At the time, I'd be pedalling away on a bike or an indoor bike, like going up a hill or something. And it was just funny, lively, and caustic moments at times appropriately. So just capturing like, the, the tech news of the day or the week, and there's been, there's been so much isn't there?Abadesi Osunsade 01:49Yeah, there has been too much. I think it's really interesting, like reflecting on tech news, when might you yourself have been a victim of the negative trends that are sort of like playing out in the industry, whether that's, you know, the fact that Michael and I chose to bootstrap partly because we wanted to build

55 min
14/10/2020

#6: Scaling the healthy world of Zwift with Eric Min, CEO

Imagine thousands of people sprinting hard on a real bike at home, yet also congregated in a hyper-colored biome filled with mega-redwood trees and dinosaurs - yes, dinosaurs. Each rider pedalling like crazy to set a new personal best, unlock a new virtual bike or ‘Everest’ after hours slaving and sweating. Imagine these thousands of humans riding communally, together, but digitally, often thousands of miles apart. Today our special guest Eric Min, founder and CEO, gives us a compelling insight into the growth and design of Zwift, the ‘massively multiplayer online game’ that blends real physical effort with a virtual world to create an experience that is augmenting and evolving the world of cycling. With hundreds of thousands of cyclists pouring from their bikes at home into the colorful, addictive biomes of Zwift through both hobby and lockdown, this hybrid healthy game isn’t just for the amateurs: this summer, the world’s peak cycling event, the official Tour de France conducted competitive races, linking racers around the world across their stationary bikes to fight for the Yellow Jersey. An incredible progression in traditional sporting practice, and a brave and serendipitous opportunity in global pandemic. What we can learn from Zwift is about so much more than just cycling. If this combination of… * ‘real’ and digital * amateur and professional * addictive and healthy …isn’t a fascinating part of how the world is changing around us right now, I don’t know what is! We talk about game mechanics, public health, wellbeing and obesity, professional sport, virtual/physical, scaling a community, and what’s tough about the challenges ahead. And my lively discussion with Eric builds beautifully on the themes and core concepts established in our very first episode ‘Exploring esports’ with the brilliant Angela Natividad, which is required listening and a great companion to follow up with after this deep dive with Eric. Friends, I do this for the impact (and the really interesting conversations!), so please help me grow Here Right Now by rating the show on Apple Podcasts, sharing with friends you think will enjoy it, and talk to me on Twitter with your feedback :) It all adds. WM Links * Eric Min on Twitter * How to get started on Zwift with a Smart Trainer - Zwift Insider * Zwift Stories - Mathew Hayman wins Paris-Roubaix (11 min video) * Zwift raises $450 million for gamified fitness to cycle past Peloton - VentureBeat Credits * Lee Rosevere for music Automated transcript Will McInnes 00:02 So I'm incredibly privileged today to have Eric min, the CEO and founder of Zwift here with us. Hi, Eric. eric min 00:09 I will. Thanks for having me. Will McInnes 00:11 How are you today? eric min 00:13 Great. Another rainy day in London. Will McInnes 00:19 Yes, beautiful weather. So this isn't the first time we've met, I was churning away on the bike, doing the build me up programme in Zwift. And someone flew past me and gave me a thumbs up which people use with full nodes called ride on. And I saw the name pop up. And I was like, Wait a second, I recognise that name. So while I was on the bike pedalling away, sweating into my iPhone, I googled you. And yeah, you'd give me a thumbs up, and it absolutely made my right. And I just wonder, do you? Do you do that? Do you routinely it's either you or a bot? I was basically like they've either created a bot. That's Eric, or is the real eric min 01:08 guy. It's funny. I saw this on Facebook thread. About the same question. You know, I've gotten from Eric, is this a? Is this an automated script, a bot? Or is it really Eric? And as a discussion thread went on? And people said, Yeah, no, it's really hard because I am on Zwift every day. And as I would do in the real world, out on the road, of course, I'm going to acknowledge someone who I panellist or, you know, say hello. I mean, this is the polite thing to do when you're on the road. And so this is

41 min
30/09/2020

#5: Digitizing the City of San Francisco with Carrie Bishop

Today our special guest Carrie Bishop shares her unique perspective into how public services and cities are being transformed digitally in her role as Chief Digital Services Officer for the City and County of San Francisco. San Francsico, the metropolitan jewel of the Bay Area, birthplace of high tech and hippie cultures, and itself right on top of the fault line criss-crossing the globe dividing those with high income and those with no income. And if that wasn’t a poignant enough backdrop for this work, for this progressive agenda, Carrie and her team have been re-designing and upgrading those public services surrounded by wild fires, in a pandemic, as unrelenting structural racism exploded into the Black Lives Matter movement and counter-protests, and with the Presidential election looming… Whatever the circumstances, day in and day out, our public services underpin so much of the fabric of our lives - schools, streetlights, sewers, permits, parking, policing. Cities do a lot. In San Francisco, the city provides more than 900 different lines of business. But as you know yourself, around the world, and even in SF, these critical services are often delivered by paper, by PDF and spreadsheet, through processes and systems made for a different time. So how would you think about transforming those for modern, mobile, digitally morphed times? Where would you prioritize? And what should be the guiding principles? the impact of public health crises, the impact of climate change, the impact of economic inequalities, impact of structural racism, like all of those things are kind of products in part of poor public service design From our conversation I hope you’ll gain a deeper perspective on the gritty realities of ‘digital transformation’ in public services, since it affects us all. You’ll bounce between an exhilarating aerial view of what can be possible, back down to an unfussy account from the frontline of just how creaky legacy systems that power our world can be and how hard-won the victories are. And you’ll hear an amusing takedown on the shiny ‘smart cities’ agenda too… Get involved and please rate, share, talk to me on Twitter with your feedback :) WM Links * Carrie Bishop on Twitter * ‘Digital Services and the Apocalypse’ - by Carrie on Medium * San Francisco Digital Services * FutureGov Credits * Lee Rosevere for music Automated transcript Will McInnes 00:00 Okay, I've hit record. Hello, Carrie. carrie bishop 00:04 Hello. Will McInnes 00:06 So I can see you're in sunny California right now. 00:10 I am. Yeah, I'm actually in Napa, California, which is a famous wine growing region. Will McInnes 00:15 You're in Napa? Yes. Yes. Those already jealous before this, this conversation started and now you just casually dropping in world famous wine country. 00:29 Yeah, it's It is beautiful here for sure. Will McInnes 00:32 That's wonderful. How long have you been there in Napa? 00:35 Well, actually, literally since March when I already had this house up here, but living in the city. And the idea was, we're just going to rent it out. And then the whole world change setting in San Francisco went into a long period of shelter in place, as we called it locked down, I guess it's called a DK. And at that point, you know, in this been living in San Francisco didn't have the space really or like the means to be able to work from home, I just thought, you know, I have this place in episode, I came up here, and I've been living up here full time. And that person's March, basically, which I feel so fortunate to have this space, because I know so many people who choose to grapple with this completely different life we're living and don't have that kind of privilege. But yeah, it's it's definitely been interesting. Will McInnes 01:23 That's cool. We'll definitely be getting into that. And I just wanted to say like, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast, I'm really excited to talk to you a

51 min
04/09/2020

#4: Online Investigations and Open Source Intelligence with Eliot Higgins

In this episode we discover and explore how a new kind of citizen journalism is changing the world with Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat, the foremost pioneer worldwide in online investigations and open source analysis, whose work uses publicly available online resources and content freely - and often bizarrely - shared in social media to expose alleged Russian state killers, identify the exact anti-aircraft unit involved in the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 and prosecute murderers of innocent children and their mothers in Cameroon. From this very practical, deeply determined work from his home - and alongside a growing team and crowdsourcing community - Higgins has built up a unique global expertise. Through our discussion, you’ll hear Eliot’s stories and practical examples that range across some of the biggest events and news stories in the world. You’ll learn about the workflow and tools of open source investigation and intelligence brought to these global events, the motivating forces of accountability and justice, and we get properly into the timely topic of conspiracy theories, including QAnon, manufactured consent, misinformation and propaganda - a topic that first bubbled up in conversation with Eric in Episode 2, ‘Deep Fake, bots & Synthetic Art with Eric Drass’. I’m pretty sure this episode with the founder of Bellingcat will get you thinking more about the power of online communities in our lives - both for good and for bad, as well as casting a comically amateurish light on how evil perpetrators handle themselves in digital spaces. Links * Eliot Higgins on Twitter * Eliot Higgins - Wikipedia * Bellingcat website * ‘We Are Bellingcat’ book - available for pre-order Credits * Lee Rosevere for music Automated Transcript Automated transcript Will McInnes 00:04 Now today we have a very special guest, who's going to expand your mind about the world of online investigations until this moment, You might not believe that you could credibly prove the identity of highly trained undercover Russian killers. The origin and type of chemical weapons used in an attack in Syria, or the exact location where an American journalist was assassinated, just from online research, but you can, or more accurately, Eliot Higgins and the team and crowdsourcing community he's built up bellingcat can do prove all of this. They don't just prove it. Their work reaches international courts, law enforcement agencies and worldwide media, bringing justice to victims and accountability to the world's most feared perpetrators. So let's dive right in and learn more about what's here right now. So Elliot, thank you so much for being here with us today. I've been following You and your work for years now is just trying to dig around the internet and do my own online investigation and try and find out how long I've been following you for but I couldn't, couldn't quite get to the bottom of it. But you've come a long way. And the practices and tools and quality of your work has has had a really meaningful impact. And I just have so much respect for what you've achieved. How did you get going, like where did this all begin? Eliot Higgins 02:26 It really started probably back in 2011, with the conflict in Libya, where I was just spending a lot of time online kind of arguing with people on the internet about things and I was interested in the Arab Spring what was happening there just because my own kind of interests in you know, I kind of grew up between the first Gulf War and the second Gulf War in 2003. And the kind of build up of that and kind of misinformation around that and the discussions around it kind of fueled my interest in kind of Middle East and US foreign policy. In a kind of Europe's in the UK, his involvement in that. So obviously Libya and what was happening there was of great interest. But with the internet, you had this kind of new element where now you have lots of videos and photographs being shared t

50 min
15/07/2020

#3: The Future of Food with Dr Morgaine Gaye

It underpins our society and the way that we live, the way we share. We commune, it's cultural, it's religious, it's societal. It's everything that we do. But it's also - as I say - just dinner. And so it has lots of meanings and it has, in some ways, no meaning at all. In this episode, fellow adventurers, we’re exploring the future of food, glorious food. I talk to food futurologist Dr Morgaine Gaye about her trend forecasting that supports innovation at global brands like Unilever, Mondelez and Mars. Our conversation is wide-ranging and lively - you’ll hear Morgaine’s rarely-shared predictions for future themes in our food, find out how she became a futurologist, confront what Dr Gaye believes will be an extended period of disruption and unearth newer, clearer connections between fashion, technology, geopolitics and broad societal change. I hope you enjoy our conversation and take something away that you can apply in your life and in your conversations :) Please shout with any feedback you have, and if you liked the podcast, do give us a rating - I truly appreciate it. Onwards! WM Links * Dr Morgaine Gaye - website * Morgaine Gaye - Instagram Credits * Lorne Armstrong of Fathom XP for the introduction * Ross Breadmore for continued support and ideas * Lee Rosevere for intro music Automated transcript Will McInnes 03:10 I was thinking before this, it would just be brilliant. To get a sense of your story. Like how, how did you get to being a food futurologist? You don't like this question! Dr Morgaine Gaye 03:25 Oh, goodness, this is the hard. This is the hardest of all questions, really, I think like most people, they end up doing a job that they didn't expect to be doing. And I also believe that the thing that we think about trying to avoid is the thing that we draw to us. And definitely, as a teenager, might you know what this the only subjects I really hated at school was what we used to call home economics, which was sort of cooking and sewing and I really didn't like it at all, and I had some horrible disasters that really, were soul destroying in the cookery class where I ended up with the largest 10 on everybody else got the tins first for the Victoria sponge, I got the I got I got the 10 that was too big. So my Victoria sponge never met in the middle. And it was just like a thin wisp of emptiness in the middle and it was, I mean the whole thing itself must have been less than a centimetre thick. It was a poor link like a pancake. And I didn't even take it home was just horrible. So so those are those sorts of food experiences. And my mother was a butcher and my father was a bodybuilder who a power lifter actually and used to sort of want to bulk up so would be eating baby food has calories back in those days and all of the things that you could do to gain weight so there's a lot of I found mealtimes with the family really stressful. I didn't like it. I was always forced to eat things I didn't want to hear I just food was just for me, not a pleasant space. And I definitely remember thinking that is definitely not a place. I want to go Don't want to be involved in food whatsoever and low and low Here we are. But I do think that really my title food futurologists is a little bit of a red herring because the food part does make people think that I am eating my way around fabulous restaurants in the world or know a lot about cooking or, and really that is the very small end of the wedge of what I do, which is a lot more, I suppose, anthropological or distich trend forecasting. So I'm looking at lots of other things in order to forecast and think about future scenarios. And food is is the biggest part because of course, it underpins our society and the way that we live the way we share. We, we commune, it's cultural, it's religious, it's societal. It's everything that we do. But it's also it is also as I say, it's just dinner. And so it has lots of meanings and it has, in some ways, no meaning at all. So i

45 min
01/07/2020

#2: Deep Fake, bots & Synthetic Art with Eric Drass

In this episode, I talk to respected synthetic artist Eric Drass - who you may know as Shardcore - about his work playing with neural networks, Deep Fake, bots and, underneath it all, the increasingly pressing question of how we can know what is true and what is not in the mediated, boundless, shape-shifting digital world we occupy. Eric is an artist who makes work in a range of media, from painting through to generative experiments which live on the net. Some of his favourite themes are identity, consciousness, the philosophical ramifications of artificial intelligence, big data and the relationship between humans and machines. Sometimes this work is political, frequently it is playful, often it is provocative or transgressive in some way. His works are often reported and cited online (see BoingBoing, Imperica). I hope you gain a new perspective from our conversation - art and artists like Eric exist to prod and provoke us to look at the world differently, and listening to him did just that for me. Please let me know any and all of your feedback, share this podcast and - if you fancy it - leave us a glowing review on Apple Podcasts :) Onwards! WM Links * http://shardcore.org * @erocdrahs * Latest major work (NSFW): http://themachinegaze.com Credits * Anna Carlson, Louis McInnes and Georgia Tregear for first listens * Mark Pinsent, Alison Goldsworthy and Leo Ryan for helpful critical feedback on Episode 1 * Lee Rosevere for intro music This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hererightnow.substack.com

1h 2m
17/06/2020

#1: Exploring esports with Angela Natividad

This episode we learn about the fascinating, fast-growing, sprawling world of esports with special guest Angela Natividad. Angela is a co-founder of Hurrah Group, a passel of creative companies dedicated to esports and gaming, and advisory board member of Women in Games WIGJ, all of which give her an incisive first-hand perspective on this world that blends the play and popular culture of video games with the performance-orientation of sport and athleticism. Our conversation spans gaming culture, esport stereotypes, the brand of sports vs esports, athleticism and health, the quirks of intellectual property law & the business of esport - a freeranging conversation about part of the world I knew so little about beforehand. I hope you enjoy our discussion. I’d love your feedback - please share encouragements and suggestions by reply or on Twitter - I’ll read every pixel. And if you enjoyed it, please share - we want Here Right Now to grow :) WM. Links * Angela Natividad @luckthelady / Instagram / LinkedIn * Hurrah Group - the esports and gaming advertising agency Credits * Ed Mancey, Ross Breadmore & Georgia Tregear for first listens and essential feedback * Jack McInnes & Ross Breadmore for editing and production support * Lee Rosevere for intro music This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hererightnow.substack.com

42 min

11 Episodes

out of 5

11 Ratings

Creator

Will McInnes
Years Active

2020 - 2021
Episodes

11
Rating

Clean
Show Website

Here Right Now

Here Right Now

Episodes

#11: Rewilding and the beaver with Derek Gow

#10: Creating new operating models for cities with Jenni Lloyd

#9: Fighting Covid-19, first virus then misinformation with Dr Dominic Pimenta

#8: Understanding our plants and fungi with Dr Ilia Leitch

#7: Expanding our empathy with Abadesi Osunsade

#6: Scaling the healthy world of Zwift with Eric Min, CEO

#5: Digitizing the City of San Francisco with Carrie Bishop

#4: Online Investigations and Open Source Intelligence with Eliot Higgins

#3: The Future of Food with Dr Morgaine Gaye

#2: Deep Fake, bots & Synthetic Art with Eric Drass

#1: Exploring esports with Angela Natividad

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